Taboo word – a word, word usage avoided or prohibited by restriction imposed on by social custom or designated as sacred and prohibited.

Target domain – See Cognitive metaphor; Domain, target d.; Metaphorization

Taxonomy – classification, categorization of elements into sets, classes, hierarchies, categories. – See Categorization; Hierarchical taxonomy

Tautology – 1) predicative doubling of names like London is London, women are women which is logically incorrect but quite felicitous from linguistic point of view as these sentences are decoded on the basis of cognitive and semiotic competence of the communicants. The felicity condition lies in realisation by elements in the position of the subject and predicate of different referential functions (q.v.) (identifying, representative – for the subject; non-referential, descriptive, definitive – for the predicate) and hence actualization of different types of lexical meaning (for representative referential function – denotative meaning; for descriptive – significative meaning – q.v.). 2) saying of the same thing twice over in different words, e.g. as a fault of style (arrived one after the other in succession).

Technical terms – See Terminology

Telescoping or portmanteau words – See Blending

Tenor – See Metaphor

Term – a word or a word combination of a special (scientific, technical, etc.) language, which is created, borrowed, or adopted to exactly express the definite concepts specific for that science and name its special objects. A t. is a definitional word, i.e. it is not only directly connected with a scientific definition but displays a relationship of one-to-one correspondence with it.

Terminography – lexicographic description of terminological systems.

Terminology – 1. the system of terms used in a particular subject; the sum total of terms for a specific branch of science, technology, industry, etc., forming a special layer in the word-stock of a language which most readily yields to systematisation, standardisation, etc. 2 the science of the proper use of terms.

Text – (corpus), an actually existing (in oral or written form) sentence, conglomeration of sentences, etc. (up to a complete work of literature, etc.) organized according to principles of coherence and cohesion. – See Discourse

Textocentric approach to meaning – functional approach to meaning which centres the links between the sign and other signs in a linear sequence as primary source for understanding what the word means.

Thematic groups – grouping of words according to some topical principle.

Thought of reference – the concept, the permanent bond of association in our mind that mirrors the referent as a generalised entity, or in other words, provides for our understanding of it.

Topology (philological t.) – the term from the domain of mathematics, refers to the study of continuity and variability, invariant and its variants, identity and differentiation. In lexicology p.t. studies the problems of synonymy, polysemy, homonymy, identity-of-unit problem (q.v.). The key point here is to try and strike the balance in interaction of the invariant and the variants, always remembering that in philology it is invariant that comes first. P.t. focuses on different types of variation in lexis. – See Variation; Allo-emic theory

Toponym – 1. a place name (Bohemia, London); 2. a descriptive place name, usu. derived from a topographical feature of the place (Highlands, Bog county); 3. toponymic derivatives, denoting people, living in the place, features, characterizing the place, products, originating in the place, etc: Bohemian, Londoner.

Transference of meaning / of name:

• metaphoric transference – See Semantic transference; Metaphor; Figurative language

• metonymic transference – See Semantic transference; Metonymy; Figurative language

Transformational analysis (explanatory transformations) – a method of transforming linguistic units into semantically equivalent formations: e.g. compounds into free word combinations, which help to gain insight into the nature of units under analysis.

Transparent idiom – See Idiom proper

Transposition – See Conversion

Tropeic derivation of the word meaning – See Semantic derivation; Semantic change; Figurative language; Metaphor; Metonymy

U

Umlaut (vowel mutation) – type of sound interchange (q.v.) due to an assimilation process conditioned by the phonemic environment, a feature, characteristic of Germanic languages, and consisting in a partial assimilation to a succeeding sound, e.g. the fronting of a back vowel or raising of a low vowel caused by an [i] or [j] standing in the following syllable but now either altered or lost. This accounts for such oppositions as full a – fill v; whole a – heal v; knot n – knot v; tale n – tell v.

Understatement – See Litotes; Figurative language

Uninterraptibility – characteristic of a word which suggests of the impossibility to violate the string of sounds/graphical symbols which comprise a word unit without breaking the unit altogether semantically and morphologically; helps to discriminate between words and morphemes, words and word combinations.

Unities, phraseological – are clearly motivated by the meanings of the components (e.g. to stick to one's guns). Can be substituted by synonymous expressions (although the possibilities are rather limited); some are easily translated and even international (e.g. to know the way the wind is blowing). – See Phraseological units

Univerb – lexical nomination by means of one lexical unit (a word). Opp. to multiverbal nomination (by means of phraseological units, word combinations).

Universal concepts (semantic primes, semantic primitives) – See Semantic base

Universal semantic base - See Semantic base

Usage/use – current employment of lexical items in day-to-day communication, subject to certain rules and regulations:

• argot u.;

• cant u.;

• context-bound u.;

• common u.;

• dynamic (performed) u.;

• exotic u.;

• idiomatic u.;

• individual (stylistic) u.;

• jargon u.;

• loftier u.;

• occasional u.;

• plain u.;

• pragmatic (interpersonal) u.;

• regular (stereo-type) u.;

• specific u.;

• stylistic u.;

• substandard u..

V

Valency – the combinability potential of a word based on semantic and syntactic collocability/compatibility of a lexical unit with other lexical units:

• semantic v. – the ability of a lexical unit to produce semantically coherent and comprehensible unities with other lexical unit(s), based on semantic compatibility of the combining lexemes which, in turn reflects the compatibility of concepts underlying lexical semantics of the word units. – See Combinability; Combinatory semantics

• syntactic v. – the ability of a lexical unit to produce grammatically correct and coherent sequences with other units, based on categorial (part-of-speech) semantic combinability.